Possible @property compromise

[H. S. Teoh]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 02:23:26AM +0100, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 29, 2013 17:06:32 H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > Why do you have to mark naked variables as @property? Isn't that
> > redundant?
> 
> In order to restrict what you can do with it to the subset of
> operations that you can do with a property function. In particular,
> taking its address would need to be illegal, as that won't work with a
> property function (or if it did, it would return a different type).

I see.


> It would be impossible to replace a normal variable with a property
> function without risking breaking code, because there are operations
> that you can normally do on a variable that couldn't possibly be
> implemented with a function (such as taking its address). But if you
> mark it to restrict what it can do, then you could swap it out with a
> function later without the risk of breaking code (which is one of the
> main reasons for having properties in the first place). @property
> doesn't currently do this, but it could, and if we don't have
> something like that, then it'll never be safe to swap variables and
> property functions.
[...]

If this is the case, then I would have to say that @property is
fundamentally broken. The whole point of @property is to make functions
behave like variables, but if this "variable emulation" isn't even
complete, then it defeats the purpose of having it in the first place.


T

-- 
Just because you survived after you did it, doesn't mean it wasn't stupid!